The effect of teaching style on the development of moral judgment in prison inmates

Abstract

The responsibilities of correctional education must extend beyond the cognitive domain of reach into the affective domain as well, specifically the realm of moral reasoning, if offenders are to be successfully reintegrated into society. However, adding a moral education component to the curriculum can be costly and ineffective. The purpose of this study was to determine if teaching style alone, independent of a moral education curriculum, can produce significant growth in moral development. Teachers were selected from the Windham School System, which serves the Texas Department of Corrections. The inmate sample was comprised of students in those teachers' classes. Teaching style was determined by response to the Principles of Adult Learning Scale (PALS), which measures inclination toward a pedagogical or andragogical teaching style. Students in the selected classes were given the Ethical Reasoning Inventory, which measures moral development according to Kohlberg's stages, in a pretest/posttest format. The interval between tests was set at 14 weeks. Certain demographics of the inmates were also included in order to determine the effect of these factors on moral development and to compare this effect to existing research. Frequency distributions of PALS scores and demographics were tabulated to establish categories for statistical analysis. Analysis of covariance was used to determine the effect of teaching style and demographic factors on moral development, using pretest scores as a covariate. Analysis of the data indicated that an andragogical teaching style does promote the development of moral judgment in prison inmates. No demographic factor produced significant results. This information can be used to provide an alternative to moral education programs. Through inservice training teachers can be encouraged to adapt a more learner-centered approach to teaching as a method for promoting moral growth.